Reverie by Adam Davidson and Keith Burgin
Reverie is a character drama that deals with the effects of addiction and obsession. It’s told in a nonlinear narrative with several dream sequences that are essential to the plot. It contains no major special effects. Reverie can be made on a limited and modest budget.
Our story begins the same way it will end. The viewer is introduced to a grizzly scene on a rainy dark day. A murder has occurred, all the players involved are unseen. The lights on the cop cars blink as the rain gently falls while the paramedics handle the scene in spades. A body bag is being zipped to the top before the viewer gets to witness who is inside.
Mike, our main protagonist, is an everyday man at first sight. He’s an average man in every sense but his mundane existence of tending to the small town as a handyman has lead him to many sleepless nights. His closest companions other than his loyal dog are his neighbors that live a healthy distance away, leaving each with the desired privacy quiet country folks have come to demand. The neighbor’s names are Jeff and Sandi. In addition to Mike’s addiction to sleeping pills, he has become obsessed with his beautiful neighbor Sandi, a beautiful red-haired woman with eyes that absorb lonely men. A contagious affection towards all living things, she is kind, loving and a loyal wife to Jeff. Jeff is a man’s man, he's retired and ten years older than his wife. Mike’s longing for Sandi seems for the time being to be contained purely inside his drug-induced dream world. All of Mike’s dreams are fueled by sex and his lack of confidence in his existence within reality. Each trip down that rabbit hole seems to end with an unsettling feeling of impending doom.
Meanwhile, a constant undertone of an epidemic is reported by a news anchor at various moments on TV. Reporting the rapid increase of a new drug that has a "Zombie-like" effect on its users. Mike’s parents have become perturbed with his isolation. Both are loving, church-going kind people who enlist a fellow couple at church to find out if their niece is available for possibly dating their lonely son. The couple, needing a hand with their water-heater and Mike being a handyman set a time and place for the encounter to occur and blossom. Upon the visit as a hired hand, Mike meets Carrie, the available pretty niece. She’s a kind, sweet, innocent woman. Mike and Carrie begin seeing one another casually. Progressing to overnight stays at Mike’s home upon the hill. Mike feels safe with her but not attracted to her. His needs for his dream girl are growing more dangerous and even more secluded until Carrie confronts him and urges him to stop taking so many pills in fear of losing him. Her intuitions about Sandi don’t come until late one night as she visits Mike’s neighbors for the first time. While dreams pile up within Mike’s altered reality, the line between fact and fiction begin to blur. After a night out viewing Swan Lake, Mike finds himself in earshot of a drug deal. Unbeknownst to him, it's the new drug. His dependence on pills leads him to his ultimate demise. The rabbit hole deepens and drags the entire cast of players down in. Soon revealing the member inside the body bag.
Reverie is a character study. A story dealing with serious issues of our society’s dependence using synthetic drugs. We feel the drama and suspense with the opening and closing mystery will appeal to a large audience.
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